The Empathy Exams

Jamison collects quarters in anticipation of visiting Charlie Engle in prison after having been his pen pal for nine months. Charlie and Jamison met at the Barkley Marathons several years prior. Charlie has a lot of experience as an ultrarunner, having been the subject of several documentaries before an IRS agent started to investigate his finances. He has been sentenced to nearly two years for mortgage fraud. Jamison discusses the conditions of Charlie’s life that resulted in his conviction, as well as the historical context: Charlie was convicted shortly after the American subprime mortgage crisis when people were eager for someone to be angry at.

Jamison wrote to him initially out of curiosity because of how his life progressed, but the two eventually developed a friendship as Charlie opened up to her about the feeling of stagnation he was experiencing now that he was behind bars. He confesses to her about his frustrations and anger, and Jamison draws comparisons between Charlie’s use of the phrase “out there” to describe freedom beyond prison and “out there” as used at Barkley when the runners would describe motion and survival. Charlie needs to see the doctor to have a Baker’s cyst in his knee taken care of but has been unable to see one, so he has been unable to exercise.